


Washed Away

by caffeine-vaccine (HashtagLEH)



Series: Tactics From the Isle (And How They Carry Over Into Auradon) [9]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), The Isle of the Lost Series - Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Ben-centric (Disney: Descendants), Bisexual Ben (Disney: Descendants), Bisexual Mal (Disney), Confused Ben (Disney: Descendants), F/M, First Dates, Love Potion/Spell, Multi, POV Ben (Disney: Descendants), d1 rewrite, enchanted lake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22744741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagLEH/pseuds/caffeine-vaccine
Summary: When he jumped into the water…well, when he jumped into the water he was very confused. His hazy thoughts ofMal, Mal, Maljust seemed to…bleed away, and suddenly there was room for a whole lot more thinking. And that made room for the alarm.
Relationships: Ben/Mal (Disney: Descendants), Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil, pre- Ben/Evie/Jay/Mal/Carlos de Vil
Series: Tactics From the Isle (And How They Carry Over Into Auradon) [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600366
Comments: 15
Kudos: 237





	Washed Away

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for the date-rapey connotations associated with love potions. If you need to skip this you absolutely can - (SPOILERS) it's basically just Ben's thoughts as he is within the love potion and then as he comes out of it. You will not be missing anything if you decide not to read this for your own mental health. Be gentle with yourself!

Ben had never been so in love. It was amazing, and wonderful, and was this what his parents meant when they talked about being so gone on each other that everything else faded away? Because that’s exactly what he felt for Mal. Nothing else mattered but her, and making sure _she_ was happy. He wanted to do everything he could to make sure that she was happy, because anything else felt painful. He hadn’t seen her smile at him yet – not really, not in a way that said she was _really_ happy – but he was trying. He would always try.

So it was the easiest thing he could do when he agreed that she and her friends should stay in Auradon. He hadn’t had any intention of kicking them out anyway, but she had looked so relieved when he had agreed that it was close enough to making her happy that he didn’t want to possibly cause an argument or other problems by telling her so. He knew Mal – she might not believe him. She wasn’t very trusting.

But he loved her anyway, wholeheartedly and more than anything. And he wanted – _needed_ – to show that to her, to prove it. The best way he knew how was to take her on a date.

He wondered, at first, if Mal might have more fun if Evie was there, too. Or even all of them – all five of them. The four were in love with each other, after all, even if they didn’t say so. But he eventually decided that he wanted to have Mal all to himself, and didn’t bring up the brief idea he’d had. He knew that before, he had intended to hopefully date all four of the kids from the Isle, but now that seemed a distant memory. He didn’t care about the other three. Not with Mal right there. He would be happy with just her for the rest of his life. Even being King didn’t matter as much as Mal did.

He had asked Mal out right there in the kitchen, after he’d noticed how pretty her eyes were and had realized he was in love with her. She had agreed, and he didn’t notice her reluctance at the time as she glanced back at the others, turning her head so that when he leaned in to kiss her his lips landed on her cheek.

That’s right, she didn’t like physical affection all that much, he remembered vaguely. Then he shrugged to himself. That was okay – he could love her in other ways. She just needed to be _happy_ , and he would make her _so_ happy.

He fended off anyone who tried coming to argue with him about what had happened at the Garden Party. Several students supported him keeping the four there, but even more disapproved. He didn’t care. One day they would all regret hating Mal, when she was their Queen and they _had_ to do what she said. He didn’t even understand how someone _could_ hate the purple-haired beauty, but rather than going to fight all of the nay-sayers on it, he devoted his attention to planning the perfect first date for her.

***

The Enchanted Lake was the most beautiful spot he could have picked. He had gone there so often as a child that he knew the path by heart, as well as the best spots for swimming. Coincidentally, the best swimming spot was right next to a romantic little gazebo where they had a picnic, and he introduced Mal to strawberries.

He hadn’t known that she’d never had strawberries, but the movies always had them in picnics, so he’d packed them up. He was grateful for that when he saw how _happy_ the simple fruit made her, and was content to leave her to them as he went to his favorite spot to make a cannonball into the water. And maybe to show off a little bit, just because he could.

When he jumped into the water…well, when he jumped into the water he was very confused. His hazy thoughts of _Mal, Mal, Mal_ just seemed to…bleed away, and suddenly there was room for a whole lot more thinking. And that made room for the alarm.

He swam to a spot with more shallow water that he could stand in before emerging, and looked in Mal’s direction to see that she’d turned away. He moved backwards, walking through the water for a moment before diving underneath to swim to a little outcropping of rock that wasn’t quite a cave where he could sit down.

And then as soon as he could, he dropped onto one of the rocks that doubled as a bench, sitting halfway in the water, and shoved his face into his hands, shuddering as his thoughts whirled.

He was so _confused_. It didn’t take much thought to realize that he had been spelled, and from there to realize that it had been a love potion. Directed toward _Mal_.

He meant what he had said earlier in the date – he didn’t think that Mal was evil. He could see in her eyes that she was a good person.

But… _God_ , she had given him a _love potion_ , which was tantamount to a date rape drug. What kind of person did that? Sure, he knew by now that things were different on the Isle, but surely something like this was universally acknowledged as _wrong_.

On top of that, _why_ had she done it? And why had the other three been in on it? Because surely they were – he could recall now that he had gone a little fuzzy and then completely under after having that cookie that they had all been so insistent that he ate – and that he didn’t think any of them had eaten any of, either.

Maybe, he thought, they had meant for the potion to be directed toward all of them? But…that didn’t make much sense. Everyone knew that love potions turned one’s attention toward making a single object of their focus happy. _Single_ being the key word there.

But maybe, because they weren’t familiar with magic, they didn’t realize that?

No, Ben discarded that idea a moment later. They weren’t stupid, none of them – despite the façade that they kept up for everyone else. They would have researched all the facets of a potion before using it.

Unless… Ben pinched the bridge of his nose as he remembered the particular _timing_ of their having dosed him. It had been right after that _stupid_ Garden Party, where everyone had picked sides on the matter of his Proclamation, and they had disappeared. They had gone immediately to make those cookies with the love potion, and then after he’d been dosed one of the first things Mal had asked was that they could all stay in Auradon.

They must’ve thought… He felt sick, and his stomach rolled as he realized that they must have thought that he had come to find them to tell them they were being sent back to the Isle. He wouldn’t do that to them – not now, now that he knew at least in small part just how bad Isle life was, not to mention with their parents. None of them were exactly shy about talking about Isle life, because they didn’t think it was bad enough that they had any shame about it, as many abuse victims did. And that’s just what they and all those Isle kids were – abuse victims. And he had gathered enough in their last few weeks here enough to know that not only was he never sending them back there, but that he would do everything he could, as _fast_ as he could, to get other kids off that didn’t want or deserve to be there.

But these four didn’t know that. Most people had either not been on their side at that Party or they hadn’t spoken up to show that they were, and it must have seemed that Ben too was going to abandon them.

But still – a _love potion_. Surely there must have been some other way that they could make sure he would stay on their side, if that was truly what they had thought? Of all the things, they decided on a love potion, and they were at least familiar with it enough that they had been able to make it in the short time they’d had.

Also, where had they even _found_ a love potion recipe? Those sorts of things were outlawed in Auradon and practically impossible to find these days. Had they – oh, God. He bit back a gasp as he realized. They must have brought it from the Isle. Many of the Villains had been allowed to bring things with them to the Isle, he knew – a sort of fake-goodwill gesture before they’d been locked up and nigh forgotten about. Maleficent’s spell books were infamous, and surely something like that would have been allowed in a place with no magic where it could have no effect. So they had potioned him with one of _Maleficent’s_ potions.

Not that that was any worse than just some potion recipe they’d found on the dark web, but still. It made Ben feel a little sick to know that he had been potioned with a recipe straight from the dark mind of Maleficent herself.

Suddenly, Mal’s voice called across the water, reaching him and sounding panicked. “Ben? Ben?!”

Well, he thought heavily, he ought to go back. He wasn’t sure how he was going to allay her fears, or how exactly he was going to tell her that the Lake water had washed away the enchantment that the four had placed on him, but it didn’t feel right to be taking her away from the other three whom he _knew_ she loved, despite how callously they had treated his own feelings in the past few days since the Party.

He slipped back into the water, making his way back and trying to gather his thoughts as he did so.

But then he saw purple in the water up ahead, and he knew it was Mal, and she had just reached the part that dropped off into deep water, and – was she _drowning_?

He pushed forward immediately, slicing through the water with speed because she was definitely floundering out there, and why on earth had she jumped in the water when she clearly didn’t know how to swim?!

He scooped her up as soon as he was close enough, shoving toward shore quickly, heart pounding as she coughed up water and spit. Was she okay?

She was lighter than he’d expected, but still heavy with water soaking them both and dragging them down. He dropped her as gently as he could on the concrete of the gazebo, but still winced mentally when she hit the ground more roughly than he had intended. She was breathing though, heavier than normal but that was probably from the adrenaline. He shook his head to rid himself of the water trickling unpleasantly down his neck, and rubbed a hand over his face, just relieved that she was okay after all.

A moment later, she shoved him in the shoulder, a bit harder than expected, and for a moment he was offended before she cried, “You scared me!” and he had a flash of memory of Carlos doing the same thing to Jay when he’d pulled a risky move in tourney that had ended in a sprained wrist, and he realized that it was one of their ways of showing affection.

So he brushed it aside and simply said, “You can’t swim?”

“No!” she said it like it was obvious, and he was stupid for not knowing that.

“You live on an island!” he defended his idea, because he felt like _that_ should’ve been obvious, too.

“Yeah, with a _barrier_ around it, remember?” Mal cried, looking incredibly annoyed. “The water on _my_ side of it is infested with man-eating crocodiles!”

Ben felt stupid for that reminder, because he’d known that – well, except for the bit about the crocodiles – but more than that, he suddenly remembered that despite this, she had still dove into the water, thinking only to save _him_.

“And you still tried to save me,” he said, unable to help a little smile from creeping up, as much as he tried to fight it down.

“Yeah,” Mal scoffed. “And do you thank me? No! All I get, is soaking wet!” She growled and got to her feet, and he jumped up after her, grabbing his tourney jacket and putting it around her shoulders to hopefully warm her up more. He couldn’t help smiling as he did it though, because this…well, it put new ideas in his head.

Namely, his doubts about her intentions were still there, but they were…lightened. Just a bit. Because what sort of evil girl would save him at the cost of her own life? It was more than keeping up with her plans to stay in Auradon.

And he suddenly had a new theory for why she had given him that love potion. He remembered when he had caught her and Evie making out at their lockers, and the explanation that she had given then – that they were just “manipulating” each other.

This wasn’t the same situation, of course – what Evie and Mal had been doing was consensual on both sides, and he hadn’t consented to the potion at all. But maybe it had been a move borne out of panic, but there were still genuine feelings there. Maybe they all wanted him to date them too, but they had been afraid of not having the chance if they were sent back. And, as kids from the Isle, they only knew how to manipulate to get what they wanted.

These were a lot of maybes, he knew. And it didn’t really excuse what they had done – not at all. But at the same time, he couldn’t really fault them for their fear and the actions that followed because of it.

But it also meant that he probably shouldn’t reveal that he wasn’t under the influence of the potion anymore. After all, they hadn’t given him the chance to reassure them that he was on their side before – what was to stop them from trying something like this again before he could explain, either?

This had definitely given a severe hit to his trust in them, but he thought that maybe he could give them a chance. After all, they hadn’t really tried to do anything while he was spelled, except make sure they could stay in Auradon. Mal had even turned away when he had tried to kiss her in the kitchen, which had an additional meaning now with this new information. It had only been a couple of days under the influence though, so maybe they just hadn’t gotten much of a chance to try anything. Or, they were uncertain what to do now with him only being infatuated with Mal when they had expected him to be devoted to _all_ of them.

He decided then that he was going to wait, and see how this played out. After all, he could be wrong on both counts and they had potioned him for another reason entirely. He also wanted to see how long they intended to keep this up, or if someday they would give him an anti-love potion. They weren’t exactly enemies at this point, but he would definitely have to be more guarded until he found out what exactly the plan here had been.

And until then, it really wouldn’t be too hard to pretend to be infatuated with Mal. He still liked her, even more after she had risked her life ostensibly to save his, and proved that she wasn’t evil after all, despite what she thought.

The hard part, he thought privately, would probably be keeping his attention completely on Mal. He still harbored crushes on the other three, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys, we are so close to the five of them being in an actual relationship and I can finally remove the "pre" part of that relationship tag. I can taste it. I'm so excited. I love them.
> 
> Also, Ben is a little in denial right now and he's looking for an excuse why the Four aren't bad. I tried really hard to make it that he's not just excusing what they've done, but his primary emotions right now are confusion and betrayal. The effects of the love potion will be dealt with way more than how crappily it was done in the movies (i.e. completely brushed off as "okay"). Right now though, I needed a reason why he's not just dropping them because of how they took advantage of his kindness, or just keeping them there out of pity because of the abuse from the Isle. I promise that this will not just be brushed under the rug!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys liked this installment where we got to see some of Ben's thoughts. Let me know! Also, if there's anything you want to see specifically, whether it's an idea or a scene from the movie worked to fit in this universe, just let me know and I will do my very best to write that in.


End file.
